During our experiences in experimenting, we found the eyes played a very important part, some audiences thought that by having our eyes closed, we looked more vulnerable, for us it was a way to keep safe, I felt as though if I couldn’t see them then they couldn’t see me either. It was during our performance we decided to keep our eyes open, closing them only at times we couldn’t bare to see the audiences reactions. I no for me I felt embarrassed, looking at myself on screen bring completely honest and truthful, hearing darker parts of my life, knowingly revealing them to the audience sometimes became to much at other times I would keep my eyes open and look directly at audience members, this was to gauge their reaction. At the end of the performance my eye contact became an act of defiance, throughout the experiments, the filming and the performance my vulnerability increased. As progressively I would reveal more of myself physically and mentally. Within the last few minutes I gained a bout of confidence and this is where I had the confidence to look people in the eye to defy and challenge.

 Fig 1. Marina Abramović ‘ The Artist is Present’

Marina Abramović  at the Museum of Modern Art performed ‘The Artist is Present’, a silent performance, where she invited audience members to sit opposite her and look into each others eyes and remain silent. This was something that inspired our experiments of having our eyes open or not, we decided it should be natural, not something that we made a group decision on so it became ‘part of the performance’, we decided that if we did what we felt was right then it was part of us showing our vulnerability.

Fig 1. Available from: http://www.theartfuldesperado.com/a-life-lesson-by-marina-abramovic-and-ulay/